Your circumstances do not determine the quality and the direction of your life. Your choices do.
Your choices set things in motion. Some things may be good and bring about good consequences for your life. Other choices may bring about negative consequences for your life. You may make these choices unconsciously or carelessly, or you may be fully aware of the consequences that your choices will bring upon you. Either way, your choices set certain things in motion, and those choices determine where your life is going.
The choices that you made only a few years ago have determined where your life is today. The choices that you are making today are determining where your life will be a few years from now. You make hundreds of choices each day, some of them without thinking. Each choice influences your future and the quality of your life. Some choices lead you closer to your purpose in life. Other choices lead you away from it and may hinder you from achieving your purpose.
Paul Keith Davis once shared a story of an experience in which he saw himself at a time in his life many years earlier, as a much younger man. As he watched himself re-live this memory, he saw himself make a decision on an ordinary day, in an ordinary setting, that didn’t seem to be very significant. As he watched his much younger self make a decision in that moment that actually occurred many years earlier, he heard the voice of God say, “That choice was not of Me.”
That simple decision, on an ordinary day, in ordinary circumstances that didn’t seem to have any particular significance at the time, set the course of his life for many years afterward, in a direction that was not best for him.
Years, later, insight from God helped Paul Keith steer his life back onto the best path for his future destiny.
What about you? Have you made choices that set you on a path that has left you less than fulfilled; less than satisfied; living a life below all that you envisioned your life could be? And have you made other choices that have kept you there, reinforcing your bad decisions? Have you unknowingly settled for something less than what life has to offer you; less that what your life could be?
Do you want to stay there? You only have one life. You only have one shot at all of this. Do you want your one and only life to be marked by compromise and settling for what is easy and comfortable? Can you live with the reality of looking back at the end of your life and seeing missed opportunities for greatness; missed opportunities to have lived a remarkable life, reaching the potential for a life of lasting meaning and purpose; missed chances to fulfill all that you could have been and all that you could have accomplished?
God has a higher purpose for you. You can either accept it or reject it by the choices you make. Most of the time, you make choices that seem very routine, but are actually helping to determine the course of the rest of your life. These choices may not come with any fanfare or any impact on your feelings to give a clue to the tremendous significance of their impact on your future, but the impact is made.
But if you have made bad choices in the past, the good news is that your life is not over! There is hope! You can turn things around!
God gave some valuable insight to an Idaho pastor named Roland Buck, letting him know that God’s perfect will is always available to anyone who makes the decision to choose it. Even if we have made choices that have steered us off course in life and have left us bleeding and alone in a ditch by the side of the road, once we make the decision to seek God’s best, we can step right back into God’s best plan for our lives and get everything back on track and chugging along towards our ultimate purpose and destiny!
You still have have a chance to turn everything around! There is still time to make the changes that you know you need to make! From this point forward, you can begin to live the life that you were born to live!
It comes down to this:
“Today I am giving you a choice of two ways. And I ask heaven and earth to be witnesses of your choice. You can choose life or death. The first choice will bring a blessing. The other choice will bring a curse. So choose life! Then you and your children will live.”—Deuteronomy 30:19 (ERV)
What is the Fear of God?
The Bible says that the Fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom (Psalm 111:10 and Proverbs 9:10). Why is that?
Let’s find out what the fear of God is.
To do that, we can look at the life of Job. In the very first verse of the book of Job, he is described as a man who feared God and hated evil. His actions will teach us what it means to fear God.
We are told in the first chapter of Job that his children liked to have many banquets or parties in their homes. At these times, Job would rise up early in the morning to pray and intercede on their behalf in case any of his children had sinned against God in any way and made any choices that might bring negative consequences into their lives.
In doing this, Job showed us what the fear of God is.
The Fear of God is the understanding that everything we do has consequences. Every thought, every word, every action. Each one comes with consequences, either good or bad, life or death.
To live in the healthy fear of God means to live with the constant realization that every choice that you make has consequences.
The Bible is very clear in warning us of the consequences of our choices.
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked [He will not allow Himself to be ridiculed, nor treated with contempt nor allow His precepts to be scornfully set aside]; for whatever a man sows, this and this only is what he will reap. For the one who sows to his flesh [his sinful capacity, his worldliness, his disgraceful impulses] will reap from the flesh ruin and destruction, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”—Galatians 6:7-8 (AMP)
But how do we know which choices will lead us to life, and which ones will lead to death?
God, Who loves us, gives us many signals in different ways to help guide us along life’s journey. God’s signals are described in the Bible. We can think of the Bible as the “owner’s manual” for our lives. As we learn to recognize and respond to God’s signals in life, we can steer our lives in more positive directions and truly experience all that we were born to be and all that we were born to do!
“This God is our God for ever and ever. He will be our guide to the very end.”—Psalm 48:14 (NIRV)
“But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth [full and complete truth].”—John 16:13 (AMP)
“You guide me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny.”—Psalm 73:24 (NLT)
“Hear, my son, and be wise; And guide your heart in the way.”—Proverbs 23:19 (NKJV)
